Gilead

Gilead

The 2004 Pulitzer Prize winning novelA New York Times Top-Ten Book of 2004Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for FictionA PBS Great American Read selection Nearly 25 years after Housekeeping, Marilynne Robinson returns with an intimate tale of three generations, from the Civil War to the 20th century: a story about fathers and sons and the spiritual battles that still rage at America's heart. In the words of Kirkus, it is a novel "as big as a nation, as quiet as thought, and moving as prayer. Matchless and towering." Gilead tells the story of America and will break your heart.

'A visionary work of dazzling originality' Robert McCrum, Observer 'Writing of this quality, with an authority as unforced as the perfect pitch in music, is rare and carries with it a sense almost of danger' Jane Shilling, Sunday Telegraph 'It is difficult not to be awed moved and ultimately humbled' Neel Mukherjee, The Times 'A great work of literature' John de Falbe, Daily Telegraph 'Gilead is a beautiful work - demanding, grave and lucid ... Robinson's words have a spiritual force that's very rare in contemporary fiction' James Wood, New York Times Book Review 'Serenely beautiful, and written in a prose so gravely measured and thoughtful, that one feels touched with grace just to read it. There's nothing flashy in these pages, and yet one regularly pauses to reread sentences, sometimes for their beauty, sometimes for their truth ... A portrait of the human condition - prey to isolation and loneliness, ever needful of faith and love' - Washington Post 'The wait since 1981 and Housekeeping is over. Robinson returns with a second novel that, however quiet in tone and however delicate of step, will do no less than tell the story of America - and break your heart' Kirkus Review 'Robinson's prose is beautiful, shimmering and precise ... Robinson truly succeeds in what is destined to become her second classic' Publishers Weekly 'Gilead is a powerful and intense read, one that takes time, but gives bountiful rewards' Bookseller 'A first novel that sounds as if the author has been treasuring it up all her life...You can feel in the book a gathering voluptuous release of confidence, a delighted surprise at the unexpected capacities of language, a close, careful fondness for people that we thought only saints felt' - Anatole Broyard, The New York Times 'A work of enormous integrity... A beautiful book of ideas' The Atlantic Monthly 'A psalm worthy of study, a sermon of the loveliest profundity... A literary miracle' Entertainment Weekly 'Gilead is a beautiful work-demanding, grave and lucid... Robinson's words has a spiritual force that's very rare in contemporary fiction' James Wood, New York Times Book Review 'Serenely beautiful... one feels touched with grace just to read it' Washington Post'Gilead is a beautiful work - demanding, grave and lucid ... Robinson's words have a spiritual force that's very rare in contemporary fiction' James Wood, New York Times Book Review 'Serenely beautiful, and written in a prose so gravely measured and thoughtful, that one feels touched with grace just to read it. There's nothing flashy in these pages, and yet one regularly pauses to reread sentences, sometimes for their beauty, sometimes for their truth ... A portrait of the human condition - prey to isolation and loneliness, ever needful of faith and love' - Washington Post 'The wait since 1981 and Housekeeping is over. Robinson returns with a second novel that, however quiet in tone and however delicate of step, will do no less than tell the story of America - and break your heart' Kirkus Review 'Robinson's prose is beautiful, shimmering and precise ... Robinson truly succeeds in what is destined to become her second classic' Publishers Weekly 'Gilead is a powerful and intense read, one that takes time, but gives bountiful rewards' Bookseller 'A first novel that sounds as if the author has been treasuring it up all her life...You can feel in the book a gathering voluptuous release of confidence, a delighted surprise at the unexpected capacities of language, a close, careful fondness for people that we thought only saints felt' - Anatole Broyard, The New York Times 'A work of enormous integrity... A beautiful book of ideas' The Atlantic Monthly 'A psalm worthy of study, a sermon of the loveliest profundity... A literary miracle' Entertainment Weekly 'Gilead is a beautiful work-demanding, grave and lucid... Robinson's words has a spiritual force that's very rare in contemporary fiction' James Wood, New York Times Book Review 'Serenely beautiful... one feels touched with grace just to read it' Washington Post

Author description

Marilynne Robinson was born in 1947. Her first novel, Housekeeping (1981) received the PEN/Hemingway award for best first novel as well as being nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.